Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

FABRICIO. I am content to take it, and I will
that we folowe the Venecian custome, that is, that
the youngeste speake firste: bicause this beyng
an exercise for yong men, I perswade my self, that
yong menne, bee moste apt to reason thereof, as thei
be moste readie to execute it.

COSIMO. Then it falleth to you Luigi: and
as I have pleasure of soche a successour, so you shal
satisfie your self of soche a demaunder: therefore
I praie you, let us tourne to the matter, and let us
lese no more tyme.

[Sidenote: The greateste disorder that is used
now a daies in pitching of a fielde; The order how
a Romain Legion was appoincted to faight; The maner
that the Grekes used in their Falangi, when thei fought
against their enemies; The order that the Suizzers
use in their main battailes when thei faight; Howe
to appoincte a main battaile with armour and weapons,
and to order thesame after the Greke and Romain maner.]

FABRICIO. I am certain, that to mynde to shewe
wel, how an armie is prepared, to faight a fielde,
it should be necessarie to declare, how the Grekes,
and the Romaines ordeined the bandes of their armies:
Notwithstandyng, you your selves, beeyng able to rede,
and to consider these tnynges, by meanes of the auncient
writers. I will passe over many particulars:
and I will onely bryng in those thynges, whiche I thinke
necessarie to imitate, mindyng at this tyme, to give
to our exercise of warre, some parte of perfection:
The whiche shall make, that in one instant, I shall
shewe you, how an armie is prepared to the field, and
how it doeth incounter in the verie faight, and how
it maie be exercised in the fained. The greatest
disorder, that thei make, whiche ordeine an armie
to the fielde, is in giving them onely one fronte,
and to binde them to one brunt, and to one fortune:
the whiche groweth, of havyng loste the waie, that
the antiquitie used to receive one bande within an
other: bicause without this waie, thei can neither
succour the formoste, nor defende them, nor succede
in the faight in their steede: the whiche of
the Romaines, was moste excellently well observed.
Therefore, purposyng to shewe this waie, I saie, how
that the Romaines devided into iii. partes every Legion,
in Hastati, Prencipi, and Triarii, of which, the Hastati
wer placed in the first front, or forward of the armie,
with thorders thicke and sure, behinde whom wer the
Prencipi, but placed with their orders more thinne:
after these, thei set the Triarii, and with so moche
thinnes of orders, that thei might, if nede wer, receive
betwene them the Prencipi, and the Hastati. Thei
had besides these, the Slingers, and Crosbowshoters,
and the other lighte armed, the whiche stoode not
in these orders, but thei placed them in the bed of
tharmie, betwene the horses and the other bandes of
footemen: therefore these light armed, began
the faight, if thei overcame (whiche happened seldom